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Games that aren't afraid of having a lot of hidden content
- Thread starter Era of not Yakuza
- Start date
- Spoiler
Planescape Torment and other RPGs from the era seemed to reward people who did side quests or just liked to explore the world.
Frog Fractions, er, 4(? I think?) is cheap DLC on a free to download port of the first game on Steam. The DLC is described as something entirely cosmetic with no hints as to what happens and when you equip the cosmetic item the game starts off exactly the same as normal before branching off into something completely different.
It's a ride. Then again, so's the whole series. Hidden Content was the name of the game, I'm fairly sure the creator describes the second game as the ARG used to uncover the third game, hidden within another seemingly irrelevant game on Steam.
It's a ride. Then again, so's the whole series. Hidden Content was the name of the game, I'm fairly sure the creator describes the second game as the ARG used to uncover the third game, hidden within another seemingly irrelevant game on Steam.
I'm replaying Xenoblade Chronicles on the Switch and there are quite a few things that you don't have to actually do unless you want to:
- Time-Limited Side Quests, which do thankfully show they are Time-Limited, but don't tell you WHEN you have to do them by.
- The Affinity Chart which can connect all 100+ Named NPCs together in some way, but you have to do Quests or just talk to them to connect them.
- Unique Monsters which you can miss if you don't go back to places when you are high enough level to beat them.
- To tie it all together, there's a point where you can miss Quests, Affinity Chart AND Unique Monsters!
I hope Xenoblade Chronicles 3 goes even further haha.
You could theoretically finish Dark Souls 2 after eight bosses, but you would have to grind a million souls on regular enemies on Champion mode.
It was the same in Witcher 3 and in witcher 2, there was a fork in the storyline and you would be gated off hours of content from the choice made.
I'll also add that it's a timed decision; you have like 3 seconds to decide which I think add a lot of weight and urgency to it.
SMT Nocturne NA/Maniax Edition added a second game that essentially expands the game's story, add new bosses and Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series
DOOM (1993) and DOOM 2
This is E1M2 from DOOM, the whole are I've painted green is optional/secret:
Pretty much every level is like this, not to mention all of the secret levels.
YMMV (this is definitely a subjective point about peoples' philosophies of gaming) but I'd suggest that in situations where the critical path *isn't* inherently obvious, exploring side-passages isn't exactly optional - you don't so much *choose* not to do it as *discover* that you don't need to do it. If you see what I mean.
There's still a ton of hidden stuff, of course, but the dark maze in the SW is somewhere you're likely to naturally explore in your search for the exit.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has this. During the game, you have to pick Mythic Paths to follow, and depending on the Path you follow you may end up with radically different companions or story beats, in addition to exclusive storylines for each path.
Several companions are actually totally missable, and a few are actually time dependent, so if you don't do certain things in a timely fashion you'll never actually encounter them.
It also has hidden companions that are available to multiple paths as long as you do certain things correctly.
Hell, who the final boss of the game is actually depends on your choices.
Pathfinder Kingmaker also had a bunch of missable content. In fact, there's a "hidden" ending that adds basically a whole dungeon to the end of the game and a new final boss as well.
Several companions are actually totally missable, and a few are actually time dependent, so if you don't do certain things in a timely fashion you'll never actually encounter them.
It also has hidden companions that are available to multiple paths as long as you do certain things correctly.
Hell, who the final boss of the game is actually depends on your choices.
Pathfinder Kingmaker also had a bunch of missable content. In fact, there's a "hidden" ending that adds basically a whole dungeon to the end of the game and a new final boss as well.
True, though it`s impressive that the most memorable part of this level (the maze) is something that you can miss. It`s not something you see in AAA development nowadays (biggest exceptions being CD Project and From Software)
Thought about that one, almost half of the game is hidden. And this kinda goes to every Mario mainline games after World: 64, Sunshine, Galaxies and Odyssey all can be completed (you get to fight Bowser and see the ending) by only getting half or even less of the stars/shines/moons. I like this approach cause it makes the game easy to finish for new players but still rewards players that want a challenge.
Yeah, the amount of stuff in Lost Kingdoms 2 is absurd. I went back to it for over a decade trying to complete all the cards and mystery dungeon. It might be the game I consistently went back to the longest, playing the same disc from 2003 to like 2014/15.
Does it really though? I've only played Disgaea 2 and half of 3, but it seems like optional content is 95% disgusting amounts of grinding and 5% unique content
Thanks for proving my point (if you are grinding alot then you aren't doing it right...because you must be missing content)
Some mentions of Witcher 3 which is great in this aspect, don't get me wrong - just try picking different choices and options in many quests and see how it's different - of course, not all of them or even the majority but there are still so many quests that are way different based on your decisions ..
For example, when there is the choice of going with Hjalmar or Cerys, try both .. both are way different and in both you learn something different and both take place at different locations, you meet different characters, different dialogs, different situations and so on.. the same with the Pellar and the choice to either go with the Bloody Baron and either going to find his dead new born baby (and then to either lift the curse or to kill the monster) or going with the Pellar to a different location (a ritual site) and doing something totally different than what you do in the first option ..
There are consenquences and quests that open in situations when you didn't do some other quests or made a choice without you noticing .. there are quests that can be open for the player only if he did some really specific actions in the previous hours or met some specific criteria for those quests to open and many of them are only available for a short time (either because some characters important for that quest can die in other quests or they are in totally different location or position by doing some other quests and so on and on)
Game has a ton of dialogs and lines and most players probably only hear a small fraction of them if they played Witcher 3 one time and didn't try to pick different choices and options in different playthroughs.. then there is a ton of miserable details, just one example : if you run away in Hearts of Stone expansion from the boss battle against the Ofieri mage Aamad and his group and after some time - either days or weeks - you go back to the same location, you find out that they are still waiting there for you but they did set up a camp in the place .. which is in my mind just some absolutely crazy detail
But Witcher 2 is in my opinion even crazier example : based on your decision at the end of the first act, location(s), characters, monsters, quests, choices and consenquences, loot, dialogs, events, interactions, info you discover are all completely different in the second act and based on your choices in this act the last, 3th act looks different and has different things happening in there.. if you want to know the majority of info from the main story, you need to play Witcher 2 atleast 2 times.. if you play Witcher 2 only once, you know and seen maybe, at best around 2/3 of the game
And another great example of a game with a lot of hidden content is Alpha Protocol.. and Cyberpunk 2077
For example, when there is the choice of going with Hjalmar or Cerys, try both .. both are way different and in both you learn something different and both take place at different locations, you meet different characters, different dialogs, different situations and so on.. the same with the Pellar and the choice to either go with the Bloody Baron and either going to find his dead new born baby (and then to either lift the curse or to kill the monster) or going with the Pellar to a different location (a ritual site) and doing something totally different than what you do in the first option ..
There are consenquences and quests that open in situations when you didn't do some other quests or made a choice without you noticing .. there are quests that can be open for the player only if he did some really specific actions in the previous hours or met some specific criteria for those quests to open and many of them are only available for a short time (either because some characters important for that quest can die in other quests or they are in totally different location or position by doing some other quests and so on and on)
Game has a ton of dialogs and lines and most players probably only hear a small fraction of them if they played Witcher 3 one time and didn't try to pick different choices and options in different playthroughs.. then there is a ton of miserable details, just one example : if you run away in Hearts of Stone expansion from the boss battle against the Ofieri mage Aamad and his group and after some time - either days or weeks - you go back to the same location, you find out that they are still waiting there for you but they did set up a camp in the place .. which is in my mind just some absolutely crazy detail
But Witcher 2 is in my opinion even crazier example : based on your decision at the end of the first act, location(s), characters, monsters, quests, choices and consenquences, loot, dialogs, events, interactions, info you discover are all completely different in the second act and based on your choices in this act the last, 3th act looks different and has different things happening in there.. if you want to know the majority of info from the main story, you need to play Witcher 2 atleast 2 times.. if you play Witcher 2 only once, you know and seen maybe, at best around 2/3 of the game
And another great example of a game with a lot of hidden content is Alpha Protocol.. and Cyberpunk 2077
Reading the replies makes me wonder if people make distinctions between hidden, optional, and alternative content. To me hidden content is something that can be missed by not knowing it's existence in any way and has no real hints as to it's whereabouts. Optional content is when something like an NPC tells you about something you can do but isn't necessary to progress. Alternative content is when you have to choose what path/dialogue that unlocks different things to do/say but is up front about your choices.
So I can only see so many examples of actual hidden content here. Most games try very hard to get your attention to see what the developer made. NPC's contact/talk to you in a can't avoid it kind of way, giant structures in the distance, etc. It's very hard to miss a lot of that stuff in today's games. Just my take though, as I know game design can dictate how you can miss something.
So I can only see so many examples of actual hidden content here. Most games try very hard to get your attention to see what the developer made. NPC's contact/talk to you in a can't avoid it kind of way, giant structures in the distance, etc. It's very hard to miss a lot of that stuff in today's games. Just my take though, as I know game design can dictate how you can miss something.
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It's my fault, I could have used "secret" content instead of hidden. Most people thought I was talking about things the players won't see.
Nevertheless, it is always a pleasant surprise to read people's opinions. You guys sold me The Witcher 2. If it wasn't for this thread I would have no idea about its content
lost kingdoms was what i thought of immediately, it has like 16 mandatory areas and 9 optional ones. you can miss 1/3 of the game by accident.
Nah, your OP was very clear, people just don't know how to read.
FromSoftware are way beyond almost any other game in this respect, so to avoid being boring by bringing another one of their games up, I'll do something a little more innovative.
Mirage Island in Pokémon RSE is this island that can appear randomly in the middle of the ocean... if you're very lucky. It has a rare berry not found anywhere else and some Wynaut, a Pokémon that can't be caught anywhere else. It resets every (real life) day, so if you see it you have to go there before midnight rolls over.
From the same games, you have the quest to find the Regis, three legendary Pokémon. You access it through a random cave hidden in the ocean floor, there are instructions in Braille that you need to translate, and once you activate it you have to find where in the whole world the three Regis are hiding in their newly opened caves. Each has a Braille puzzle before you can face them too.
This is what we used to have. Underwater caves in Braille. Reject modernity, embrace tradition.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom has secrets hidden in manners as obscure as possible as a nod to the series's 8-bit roots. The kind of secret so impossible to find you'd only hear about it from a kid on the schoolyard whose parents got the a sub to S.W.A.T.Pro magazine.
You sure about that?
Reason being is computer enemies will use fatalities, so whether it was the console versions or in the arcades, you were going to see fatalities even if you had no idea how to execute them.
There's a TON of content you won't see in Celeste if you just go with clearing A-sides and not seeking out hearts and B-sides. And it's all essential to the experience if you ask me.
Hidden... hm, well Fromsoft has been covered widely by commjnirt so I'll do something diff.
Baldur's Gate 2 had a bunch of optional stuff that would qualify as hidden. The Celestial Fury katana encounter in the temple district has no quests leading to it, tucked away in an unremarkable building. Kangaxx the lich had some clues but overall I would say it probably wasn't something people stumbled on blind. Same with the lich hidden behind the tavern in the city gate district, it's such an unremarkable tavern in an unremarkable area that many probably didnt bother to check for hidden doors. So much more I probably don't remember.
Morrowind is probably the best of all the mainline Elder Scrolls for this. The main quest itself has a secret path to allows for you to recover a bit if you whacked certain MQ characters, and if you didnt know the secret path existed you would just assume your game is fucked when you got the message for killing an essential character. There was also main quest skips that werent exploits but actually in line with writing (eg IIRC you could skip like the first half of main quest if you went to the Valley of Winds shrine and get your nerevarine ring as proof you are the Chosen One right from the start of game, and NPCs would actually ackowledge this). So many layers of dungeons or tucked away areas that you wouldn't even notice unless you were exploring with levitation, or checking out every pool of water in dungeon to make sure there wasn't a secret underwater tunnel. Random quests like the pillow lady many probably never noticed. I don't even think the submerged island dungeon where you find Dragonbone Cuirass has any hints as to go check the island out.
Perfect Dark, esp way more than Goldeneye had plenty of quirks in the mission design to allow you to accomplish objectives or obtain hidden weapons unexpectedly. I really hope the new PD is a mix of this and modern Hitman trilogy in mission design.
Baldur's Gate 2 had a bunch of optional stuff that would qualify as hidden. The Celestial Fury katana encounter in the temple district has no quests leading to it, tucked away in an unremarkable building. Kangaxx the lich had some clues but overall I would say it probably wasn't something people stumbled on blind. Same with the lich hidden behind the tavern in the city gate district, it's such an unremarkable tavern in an unremarkable area that many probably didnt bother to check for hidden doors. So much more I probably don't remember.
Morrowind is probably the best of all the mainline Elder Scrolls for this. The main quest itself has a secret path to allows for you to recover a bit if you whacked certain MQ characters, and if you didnt know the secret path existed you would just assume your game is fucked when you got the message for killing an essential character. There was also main quest skips that werent exploits but actually in line with writing (eg IIRC you could skip like the first half of main quest if you went to the Valley of Winds shrine and get your nerevarine ring as proof you are the Chosen One right from the start of game, and NPCs would actually ackowledge this). So many layers of dungeons or tucked away areas that you wouldn't even notice unless you were exploring with levitation, or checking out every pool of water in dungeon to make sure there wasn't a secret underwater tunnel. Random quests like the pillow lady many probably never noticed. I don't even think the submerged island dungeon where you find Dragonbone Cuirass has any hints as to go check the island out.
Perfect Dark, esp way more than Goldeneye had plenty of quirks in the mission design to allow you to accomplish objectives or obtain hidden weapons unexpectedly. I really hope the new PD is a mix of this and modern Hitman trilogy in mission design.
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Yeah but AI fatalitities in Mortal Kombat were programmed to be extrermely rare, the developers wanted kids across school yards to debate about what they saw happen that one time. They also purposely chose the Fatality controls to be nothing related to actual in-game moves, and made you have to stand the right distance away from the character to do it. So even if someone saw a fatality, good luck being able to reproduce it to prove to your friends that a character literally got their head ripped off.
Just like the secret enemy Reptile - in the first Mortal Kombat, to fight Reptile you have to wait until a shadow crosses the moon on the pit level (happens once every 40 games), and then get two perfects without using the Block button and finish it with a Fatality (and not just hitting the enemy into the pit). They didn't expect anyone would ever figure out how the hell they did that, so nobody would believe them when they said their brother fought a green ninja.
What makes it even crazier, is the development team was all of 4 people, with a shorter dev cycle than they were used-to. Yet they still spent time putting in this secret content they didn't expect people to actually figure out.
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I'll be damned about those fatalities! And I always thought Reptile was obtuse just because.
What a cool bit of info. Thanks for that.
Came here to say Isaac.
There's so much under the surface that it doesn't even hint at, or barely at all.
I've played New Pokémon Snap for hundreds of hours and there are still lots of paths, Pokémon and interactions that I haven't found yet.
Wait, is that really true? I played this recently and I definitely feel like that there's at least a couple of bosses that you have to fight in the main questline. Salvador and Tommasi I think? Although yeah a lot of the big enounters are just mobs of enemies and a lot of the bigger bosses are side missions.
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yep. Arcanum definitely springs to mind. Maybe now that Microsoft owns the IP and employs Tim Cain they can get a team to bring that world back using the Deadfire tools. (Hey I can dream right?)
Etrian Odyssey. 3 in particular. You have two... actually three routes. And each one has their own unique final boss. Third one you really need a guide because without it, you won't find it.
But all of them have areas that you can explore after getting certain items or finishing the main story. Even a final stratum which leads you to a more powerful final boss.
But all of them have areas that you can explore after getting certain items or finishing the main story. Even a final stratum which leads you to a more powerful final boss.
I had this tab open to reply and completely forgot so forgive me for the bump but full metal furies, an indie game, had like a majority of the content hidden away behind puzzles that players never solved. The game flopped because half of it was hidden behind puzzles and the marketing kept it a secret.
One of my favorite examples of this type of thing in TW3 is that Barnabas Basil in Blood and Wine will introduce himself differently depending on when you first meet him.
Normally most players will go the Corvo Bianco the moment they're able to, it is one of the main aspects of that DLC after all.
However if the first time you go there is when the game automatically takes you there if you chose to lift Marlene's curse then he'll have extra dialogue saying he's pleased to finally meet you.
But even then, if you don't lift Marlene's curse and you don't go there until you've completed the game AND you got the bad ending, he'll refer to the dearly departed Duchess ordering him serve as your majordomo.
It's crazy how much they took into account.